Beat The Christmas Rush, whoosh.

Well if that last month is any indication of how quick the year is going to rush by then I am glad we are getting on with our christmas cards. That is the super idea for a challenge for the year called Beat The Christmas Rush over at Creative Craft World.  

I have carried on with my scraps and made another dent in them, in fact at this rate I shall be taking advantage of the sales.

They are pretty simple as you can see; I am a scrapbooker first and foremost and so this isn't my natural element, I admire card-makers tremendously a great card is tricky. So as I struggle with a focal point, I try and keep them simple.

So two pieces of card with washi, pearls, a few stickers and chipboard elements and they were done.

So go on and have a go, it took me about an hour all told and I am pretty happy with them, well apart from the last one with it's wonky real stitching, switched to faux after that little disaster :)

My favourite from last month's entries was this one from Wendy here at her blog Scrapbooks and Cookbooks.

Creative Craft World Mini-kit.

Have you seen the wonderful My Minds Eye Unforgettable Collection by Jen Allyson? I had to get my mitts on some this month. Creative Craft World feature it in their mini-kit this month. You can have a look here and see what some of the DT have come up with, love Trish's cards and Sue's great baskets, cute.

Impossible.

It's two letters too long :)

Anne challenged us here at Lucky Snapping to think about the impossible and what that means to us. She also shared her story which was quite moving, there is a lot of inspiration over there this week.

My impossible that has been lurking in my mind this week was when I moved back to Devon to live with my parents nearly 8 years ago.

I won't share the details here but the outline is that I needed to leave a tricky situation with my ex. He was quite controlling and so without his knowledge I asked my parents for help, hired a big ole ford transit panel van, packed my belongings up as well as I could beforehand and then in a short period of time whilst I knew he would be out my Dad appeared and we packed the transit, the boys and my raggedy life. My heart was hammering at the enormity of what I was doing; the implications that I couldn't know about in the future, leaving my adopted town, my friends, my job. You get the idea.

Popping that key through the letterbox was one of the most challenging things I have had to do.

As I tried to wield that Transit van out of the city, following my dear, dear Dad driving my dear, dear (very) little boys as the tears streamed was frightening. The closer I got to home though, the better and freer I felt, Mum's face as I got here, my brother's, my niece's. To know that they were so nearby, I felt such relief. By the time the cot was made, the beds made up, all of us in our pyjamas, the phone turned off, I knew I had done the right thing.

As I journaled last night, when I look back now at the impossible task, I wonder what would have happened if I had said it was impossible. 

Life, ain't it odd?

  I painted with gesso, sprayed with cosmic shimmer mists, used washi tape that was one of the ones my lovely friend Sue (isn't her View challenge coming along beautifully?) gave me for my birthday and some stamps, I didn't know what to put in the space, but I think now it will be a print out of this blog post and go into project life. It is a milestone to talk about it and all the other thoughts I have had about it this week so I can record that it happened this week.

I must show you my project life as I have changed it's format and I am quite liking it :) I have also made a layout of January's Month In Numbers and haven't shown you that, I have also finished a layout for the house challenge on UKS that used some ideas from Kirsty's Telling Tales class and I want to show you that. In a minute there will be more than one blog post per week *blink*.

"Maybe" see you later in the week.

A Scrappy Day...

One minute I was cooking, the next scrapping, then eating, then blogging, time to stop now :)

First up, the weekly challenge.

Documenting our Christmas Dinner, complete with ketchup *sigh*.

I had a catch up with The View Challenge that I am hosting once a month over at the Lucky Snapping blog.

I have coalesced the many ideas I have had for it into two projects and I think I may do a third using my kitchen window photos.

So the views for the 12x12 scrapbook will be for views from the south west coast path from here where I live at Ilfracombe to where I work in Braunton.

January

February.

I am going to scrap my neighbourhood photos in the minibook.

January

February.

Pleased with how it's coming along and pretty much how I envisaged it.

I shall work on my kitchen window photos this week.

Have a good week everyone.

Lucky Snapping | Rainbow

If you are Blog-Hopping, then a warm welcome to you :) The post you are looking for is here. Please do feel free to have a look at my entry into another challenge below before you go :)

Janice challenged us to 7 days of photo taking of the 7 colours of the rainbow. Thank you Janice, great challenge.
You can see it here at our Lucky Snapping challenge.

Red: 

Orange:

Yellow:

Green:

Blue:

Indigo:

Violet:

I really enjoyed this Janice, thanks for setting it for the Lucky Snappers :)

Storytelling Sunday:Pick Your Precious|Granny's crochet hooks.

If you have arrived from the CCW Blog Hop, then you are very welcome and you can find the hop here. Please feel free to hang around and read on about Storytelling Sunday. 

First Sunday in the month? It is time for Storytelling Sunday hosted by Sian over at High In The Sky. Everyone is welcome with short or long stories, photos, layouts or simply words. Always such good stories and blogs to find and spend time reading. Sian has suggested that we pick our precious things to tell stories about this year which is splendid. 

This month I want to tell you about a recent precious gift, my maternal Granny's crochet hooks. My dear Aunt heard that I was attempting to learn to crochet and so she dug out my Granny's hooks for me. I cannot tell you how much these spurred me on to learn and the pleasure I get from using something my Granny used. I love the container they came in too.

I love that there are so many different sizes and quality, the blue plastic one, I can imagine may have been a freebie from a magazine, or maybe a 'starter' hook for one of her daughters or grandchildren? The teeny-tiny ones? I cannot wait to be able to do such close work. Both she and my Aunt made lace, although mainly done on a cushion with a million weighted threads...wait, I have just thought of a precious for another month :)

Now, I am a new starter at this, in fact after it being a new years resolution for 2012, it was only this past month that I finally feel I 'get it'.

I first properly had a go at our UKS social group's retreat last March and it was painful, I couldn't get how to chain the foundation for a looooonnnnnggggg while. As my Mum said when she saw me on my return home it was like a "cow shooting a musket", which is definitely a Granny saying!

I am completely ham-fisted where textiles are concerned, Mrs Mcklintock my home economics teacher would have agreed.

However, I have been determined to succeed, I don't wish to be able to hook anything amazing, just make some small doilies and flowers as embellishments for my papercrafting. I tried a few youtube videos, I bought a book, I started buying a serial 'how-to' magazine but I just wasn't getting it. I put the hooks and yarn away in a shiny new clear plastic box and it peeked out reproachfully at me from where I put it behind the sewing machine. 

Then in September as part of Shimelle's Learn Something New Every Day she encouraged us to try something new each saturday, well I persevered one saturday evening and managed a few rows of stitches that were ok. 

Flushed with success at being able to go up and down, I looked at the crochet flower book and wondered how on earth I could go round corners into a circle.

Back in the box it went.

My friend Sue then sent me a link to a youtube series from the wonderful Olivia, aka girlybunches. One evening (waiting for the snow to start falling) a couple of weeks ago I sat down and watched and she completely demystified it for me and by the time the snow started falling at about 00:50 I had made a doily. Just like that.

"* *** ******"

That was not swearing in euphoria, it was what I would have said if I had let my punster side out (which I didn't), she would have said I was hooked. I bet you are glad I didn't let her get away with that cheap hook-in tag line.

I like to make a layout for Storytelling Sunday, it has usually been one of my favourite layouts each month and so I chose a great sketch and idea to follow this month. Wilna Furstenburg has posted two fabulously inspiring videos over at 2 Peas for the In The Mood To Scrap series. I am almost embarrassed to link my layout to hers as "cow shooting a musket" didn't do it justice, no nice white frame, pink pawprints all over it lol. "cow shooting a musket"'s friend "impatient cow" joined in and even though Wilna said leave the impasto overnight, she had to stick her finger into the best bit at bedtime and splodged it. Oh dear. Anyway, it was good painty fun and although it doesn't have quite the skill, I am pleased with it well enough. 

In the spirit of the thing I wanted to try a more delicate yarn to try the longed for embellishment. I bought some mercerised cotton this week and attempted to make the doily in half-size as my first scrapbook embellishment and as you can see it was pretty much a disaster, but the only way is up from here and surely this is the best layout to put it onto? 

Thank you so much for reading and I will hopefully see you next month. 

A Good Day: February Scrapmap.

Hello to all my lovely regulars and a warm welcome to anyone new who is stopping by for the Creative Craft World Blog Hop.

You may have arrived from the lovely Sarah's blog Scrap's of Sarah, if not and you want to be in with the chance of a prize please start here at Creative Craft World.
I love the February Scrapmap, I always forget about using arrows and I see them everywhere so this gave me the prompt to have a go.

I got the new paper, stamps and washi from My Mind's Eye yesterday and had a lovely chilled couple of hours putting the layout together whilst watching a film.

Lots of layering of paper in embellishment clusters, my favourite, or at least, my favourite at the moment.

Now then please hop, skip and a jump over to the lovely Susi's blog, Susibee's Crafty Mess.

 Have a good weekend =)